Retro time! Touch is a 101-episode sports-drama anime based on the manga of the same name by Adachi Mitsuru. It also spawned three feature films, two TV specials and several live action versions in addition to the anime since its incarnation in 1981. Famous 80s j-pop star Iwasaki Yoshimi performed most of the openings and endings for the show, the first of which was recently covered by Bleach ending artist Younha.

The story of Touch revolves around twin brothers Kazuya and Tatsuya, and their childhood friend Minami. It’s generally accepted that Kazuya, a handsome, personable, intelligent up-and-coming baseball star who dreams of going to Koushien, will eventually end up engaged to Minami, to his twin brother’s annoyance. Tatsuya, despite his own hidden talents, consistently steps back to allow Kazuya to take the limelight, but little by little he finds himself unwilling to give up so much for Kazuya, especially when it comes to Minami. When he starts reaching for his own place in the world, though, everyone is going to sit up and take notice!

Touch is considered to be one of the best sports animes out there, and continues to be spoken of some 25 years after its first publication. It has never been licensed for North American distribution (there are fansubs available, however), but it has been dubbed into French, Spanish and Italian at points.

If you’re going to give Touch a look, though, start with the beginning of the anime – the movies take place much later on in the series, I’ve been warned, and will spoil some major plot points. Otherwise, enjoy!

So I hear the FUNimation Channel has opened its own little store on iTunes! It’s not available to me, since I have a Canadian version of the program installed, but maybe our American readers will be interested in checking this out. Supposedly, a single episode costs $1.99 (some of the featured shows are Samurai 7, Speed Grapher and Desert Punk) and they can be purchased singularly or in full seasons, viewable through iTunes, iPod Videos and if available, AppleTV. So far, FUNi is the first company to offer anime through iTunes.

If anyone decides to try it out, let us know how things went by using the comment box below!

Source: Newtype USA

Amazingly popular anime Naruto has been in filler mode for over a year now. For those who don’t know, filler episodes are made-up stories by the anime production company (although there can be some short fillers made by the manga-ka themselves) to allow the manga storyline some buffer before animating it. This has been controversial in the past, because the quality of the filler storyline is quite often very poor. In the case of the Rurouni Kenshin filler, the popularity of the show decreased to the point where it was cancelled and the animating of the next arc never went ahead.

This Naruto filler has been painful for me. It’s generally a single episode story, maybe extending to three episode long arcs, and are usually very stupid, ie: the punchline is that Naruto farts at the wrong time.

So it’s a huge relief to hear that the filler will end this coming spring! The next arc in the manga will have Naruto two and a half years older – now aged 15! The characters have been redesigned to show their new ages and it’s looking very awesome. This new Naruto will be called “Naruto: Shippuuden” (Naruto: The Hurricane Chronicles) and accompanying it will be yet another animated movie, later this year. Yay!

Hi everyone! I’m back from a bit of a hiatus with plenty of plans for blog updates, but I’ve gotta know first - what do you guys want to hear? I’ve been meaning to make my posts a bit more personal, and I’ve always wondered if I should be concentrating more on the newest news in Japan or concentrating what’s making its way to this side of the pond, as most of our audience is English-speaking. It seems the more I talked about the latest manga the more people wanted to hear about Tokyopop’s release schedules instead! So this is a call to you guys, the readers, to find out what it is you want to see in this column. I’ll still be making my series-info posts and reporting on major events like which huge show has just been licensed, but I’d like to mix it up a bit. If you have something you’d like covered – anything at all anime related – comment and I’ll do my best to deliver!

Kiba is a fantasy anime by director Hiroshi Koujina about Zed, a 15-year-old boy who lives in a place called “Calm”. He is frustrated by his current situation in life and feels that somewhere out there is a place where he can live more fully. One day, at the invitation of a mysterious wind, Zed dives into a space-time portal, seeking the “answer” that might be there. Riding on the wind, he is transported to a war-torn world where magic users called “Shard Casters” fight endlessly with each other, using magical crystals. With the power of the Shards, the Shard Casters are able to use magic and control monsters called “Spirits”. Fascinated by that power, Zed aims to become a Shard Caster. However, he still doesn’t know that residing in his body is “Amil Gaul”, a mighty Spirit with the power to influence the world’s future.

Five episodes have aired as of this writing. I just saw this show over the weekend and thought it was fantastic; definitely worth checking out!

Links:

Official Site

Source: Wikipedia

Musashi, a new anime series from the creator of Lupin the 3rd, will premiere April 9 on Japan’s BS-i network.

More info if and when I get it!

Source: Anime News Network

Funimation has created a two-hour anime block for syndication. The first network to carry the block will be CoLours TV, which will run it 7 days a week from 10pm to midnight EST. Shows and starting dates are unknown; CoLours TV’s online schedule, which runs through April 9, currently does not show the block scheduled.

Source: Anime News Network

I’ve been updating fairly frequently on Keroro Gunso, so since the movie premiered this week in the Japanese box office, it seemed logical to post about it. There are actually 5 anime movies on the charts right now, 6 if you count Kaiketsu Zorori, which is playing as a double feature alongside Keroro – this year’s Doraemon (Nobita no Kyoryu), One Piece Movie 7, Hokuto no Ken – Raoh Gaiden Junai-hen, and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation III -Love is the Pulse of the Stars-. Currently, Doraemon is #2 on the charts.

Just hours after my last post, Viz issued a press release stating that they had indeed acquired the license to the popular Bleach anime. Seeing how they distribute the manga currently, most of us were probably just waiting for it to happen. It seems as though it will see an English television release, though the details have not yet been set in stone.

Links:
Bleach review

There is a rumour abound that Bleach, the popular anime adaption of Kubo Tite’s manga series, has been licensed by Viz for distribution in North America. At this time it has not been confirmed, so I’m posting this to let people know that…of course, seeing how well it’s doing in Japan and the manga has been faring over here so far, it may be that they are waiting for convention season to get started before they break the news. Let’s hope for the best!